Illinois WIC EBT food assistance program outage resolved after affecting thousands of families statewide

The Illinois WIC EBT system, which provides food assistance for women, infants, and children, was back in operation Tuesdaty afternoon after experiencing a statewide outage.

The outage impacted a program that provides healthy foods, breastfeeding support, and other services.

Multiple Illinois county officials said the outage affected EBT card services, and online files may have been inaccessible. Officials said phone verification systems may also have been unavailable.

WIC appointments continued as scheduled.

Just before 3 p.m., the Illinois Department of Human Services said the outage had been resolved.

"Illinois' WIC program is operating as usual, and benefits are accessible," the department said. "For a period of time on June 2, the processor was down statewide. The state of Illinois worked actively with the processor to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and the situation is being closely monitored to ensure access is stable."